The snow had vanished, and already the grass had returned to the fields, and the leaves to the branches: what a marvelous time! To kiss the sky with his sun-drenched lips?

Each night he would give up on sleeping in his pain and drowning in his silence; he would watch the few stars that were in the sky that night, but he would never be living them. Something has taken his warmth and replaced it with a starless sky.

He stayed under the fluorescent street light until the sounds of traffic and nightlife faded into silence, and only then did he look up into the night sky, the way he usually did when he was looking for answers.

No.” The word burned in his mouth and sizzled on his tongue. “A wind has blown the rain away and blown the sky away and all the leaves away, and the trees stand.” His last words were with finality, his eyes no longer sparked. “I think, I too have knownautumn too long.